


she's still too young to treat

by queenieface



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Angst, Drabble Set, F/M, Fluff, Possible Spoilers, Rikku is fifteen when this story starts, Romance, just go with it, just work with me here, like she is in the game, little to no dialogue, minor blood and violence, possible ridiculousness, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 50
Words: 13,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenieface/pseuds/queenieface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rikku doesn't tell Yuna that she isn't really mourning Tidus - but she does miss him, Yunie, so don't be too mad at her - but the man she loved once and maybe forever. Still Yuna whistles for Tidus everywhere they go, and Rikku does not know how to whistle, and he probably wouldn't come back for one anyway, so she learns to swing a sword and hopes that it is enough.</p><p>-------<br/>50 loosely connected, slightly chronological drabbles centered on my FFX otp Rikku/Auron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, and thanks in advance for reading!  
> Each chapter will be short, usually around 300-500 words. Some are a little longer, and others a little shorter.  
> Chapter prompts are from a 50sentences list that was going around livejournal a long time ago, so I don't own any of those.
> 
> Title comes from the song "Volcano" by Damien Rice.  
> I do not own any of these characters, and am not making any profit off this work. It's all in good fun. Well, and the name of angst. I'm a fan of angst.

She has always been  _not as good as_.

Not as good as Brother at fixing and flying the airship.

Not as good as Father at swindling and making deals and leading people.

Not as good as Gippal at fishing and being attractive in general - although there are few people who manage to be as good looking as Gippal, so she really made her peace with that fact a long time ago.

She is not as good as Mother was. She is not as good as Uncle Braska was.

And she is most certainly not as good as Yuna is, especially when it comes to healing.

Yuna is a balm for all kinds of wounds, to all different people. She can heal nearly anything, from bruises to broken hearts, and anything in between. She is patient and kind, graceful and poised. All the things Rikku just, isn't.

She is pondering this shortly after their adventure at the Farplane in Guadosalam - and man what she wouldn't give to never deal with an unsent Guado leader ever again - somewhat morose and resigned when she falls in love for the very first time.

Auron tells her, in a tone of voice that brooks no argument, that she does not  _have_ to be as good as Yuna. That she makes them all laugh, and that is more than enough.

And when she replays the words to herself later, after they pass through the Thunder Plains when she is finally able to find some inner calm, the words are a comfort to a wound that even Yuna had never been able to heal.


	2. kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't supposed to happen, and he can tell by the blush on her cheeks.

It is not the first time he has been kissed.

He has lived a very long, complicated life, and only part of it was devoted to the service of Yevon - and really, even that seems like such a small slice of his life when he looks back on it. 

He has had many kinds of kisses - kisses in the rain, kisses behind important buildings, kisses in the middle of drunken brawls, and even one spectacular kiss on top of the stadium in Luca (afterwards they were forcibly removed by stadium security and his commanding officers gave him mountains of crap about it, but he didn't regret it for a second even then). So it is not the first time he has been kissed.

But it  _is_ the first time he has been tugged downward by firm hands, tanned from the sun and scarred from use or carelessness or quite possibly both, and kissed quite so determinedly. 

She doesn't close her eyes, and her mouth is set in a grim sort of line against his like she's afraid she's going to catch fire at any moment, but there is a faint pink blush working its way across her nose that is just the tiniest bit adorable. The kiss lasts the span of two very quick heartbeats - and he will never admit to feeling just the smallest amount disappointed that it ended so quickly - before she is stomping away from him, wild hair swinging with each step she takes.

She doesn't say anything about it later that evening, when they've all gathered around the fire telling more stories about a Calm that he knows he will not live to see, but he can still feel her lips pressed against his when the sun rises the next day.

All things considered, it's not exactly the worst kiss he's survived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Queenie~


	3. soft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All she thinks of for a week straight is just how soft his lips really were.

She doesn't know why she did it.

It was mostly two-thirds bravado and one-third being irritated at Tidus' teasing. She'd accidentally let slip that she found the swordsman attractive, and had yet to hear the end of it. So, one afternoon that she will never forget, she stomps her way up to the older man, grabs two handfuls of his red coat, and yanks Auron down for her very first kiss.

_It's actually somewhere around her twenty-third kiss, but she grew up playing house with Gippal, so absolutely none of those sloppy kid kisses count. At all._

His whiskey-brown eye is open wide in shock, and the two seconds she spends with her face pressed against his - because really, it's less of a kiss and more like a point being made to the wildly laughing blond moron behind her - are right up there with crossing the Thunder Plains for  **Most Risky Moments** in her life. 

She stomps away without looking back, and when they sit around the fire that night, she does her absolute best not to look at him. It works well enough until he bids her goodnight, and she feels the flush on her cheeks nearly all the way to her toes. 

It does not stop her remembering the feel of his unshaven face against hers, or the startling softness of his lips. She knows right then and there that it's really only a matter of time before she swallows her embarrassment and pride and attempts it again.

All things considered, it's not exactly the scariest thing she's ever survived. 


	4. pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auron is no stranger to pain.  
> Neither, in fact, is Spira.

He is no stranger to pain.

He has grown up in a world molded by grief and built on altars of sacrifice.

He has seen men die in battle and, worse still, innocents dying while defending their homes. He has watched good friends and lovers go to certain death on the battlefields, and he dragged Tidus into a strange world of pain and certain suffering at the behest of a nearly-gone almost-friend. So Auron is no stranger to pain.

Neither, in point of fact, is Spira.

So he does not understand why looking at the blonde-haired, green-eyed young woman fills him with an overly protective and completely irrational urge to ensure that she never has to feel such a thing again.

_It doesn't matter, though. Soon he will be gone, and she will know pain like she never thought she could._


	5. potatoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is relieved beyond comprehending that the lumps are only potatoes.

She knows that he is watching her.

She's not being particularly sneaky that evening, but still, that whiskey-dark eye follows her as she traipses to and fro, bringing back little bundles and surprises that she finds in the fiends.

Stealing has always been a gift of hers, one of the few things she was always the best at, and they stopped trying to stop her from clawing her way through the fiends for their treasures long ago. 

When she returns, several hours later, after the sun is long set and the group is beginning to give into drowsiness, she watches Auron's face as he notes several strange lumps beneath her clothing.

She wants to draw it out a little longer, act like nothing is amiss - because being a thief is only half-fun if you cannot also play pretend - and she would have managed it certainly if one of her prizes hadn't slipped down the leg of her shorts to roll across the clearing and come to a stop at his booted foot.

It is with a deep sigh of odd relief that Auron discovers the lumps are only potatoes.


	6. rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rikku has never done what he expected.

They are only a few short days out of the Thunder Plains when the rain comes.

They'd had little warning - a clear sky had greeted them when they woke and they hadn't been expecting the bottom to drop out shortly after lunch - so they'd only managed to duck into a small alcove off the side of the road.

He'd expected her to follow suit after her stunt in the Thunder Plains; expected her to cower and shiver beneath the overhang with the rest of them. It's in the rainstorm that he discovers that very rarely will Rikku ever do as he expects.

For a long moment, she only stands in the roadway with her head tilted back. She let the rain wash down her face and deep into her mass of hair. He idly wonders how long it's going to take that heavy mess to dry before she's suddenly laughing. It's a clear, sharp sound - nearly on the edge of hysteria, and really, aren't they all? - and it shatters the relative quiet of the group. Soon, Yuna is laughing too, and shortly after her follow Tidus.

Then Rikku's dancing, splashing from puddle to puddle as she sings a silly song. Before he can stop her, before he can say anything about how foolish her behavior is - doesn't she realize they will all catch colds if she stays out in the weather? - Yuna has joined Rikku back on the road.

The cousins splash through puddles and dance, and very soon thereafter, Tidus and Wakka join them. Khimari, Lulu, and himself remain safe and relatively dry under the overhang - which is much roomier now that it is only three people sharing the space, even if they do have to duck - watching the show with barely-repressed humor. The rain subsides shortly afterward and the group marches on.

It is with only a small amount of self-satisfaction that, as Rikku sniffles and sneezes around the fire that night, he offers a belated warning about dancing in the rain. 

The glare she sends him following such a remark is diminished somewhat by her bout of sneezing, and as he laughs he feels a warmth deep inside him that he thought had died somewhere long before he ever met her. When he falls asleep, he dreams of Rikku and the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Queenie~


	7. chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was never very good at pretending she didn't want something, and she'd never wanted something as much as this.

The Ronso offer them warmed cups of chocolate at the base of the mountain, and the weary group of travelers are all too happy to accept. The air had grown steadily colder as they'd journeyed up from the Calm Lands, and Rikku was nowhere near dressed for the weather.

He finds her huddling over a lone fire, sipping idly at her cup and staring unseeingly at the fire. He joins her without speaking and offers her what is left of his own drink, motioning at the sake hanging at his hip in answer to her questioning stare. She takes his cup with a smile, and he notices the way her eyes linger for just a moment longer than polite on his lips.

It draws his own attention to her lips, soft and warm, and after a perfunctory glance around to be sure they are not noticed, he tugs her chin up and presses a kiss to her lips.

Rikku finds that his lips are warm, and taste faintly of chocolate, and when he pulls back - all business as usual, because that is simply how Auron works - the smirk on his face says everything that she needs to know.

So she sips her chocolate in silence and thinks about the kiss she first took, and then the one he gave, and when Tidus asks her later - years later, or maybe decades, or maybe after just a few short months - why she always smiles when she drinks chocolate, she will only give him a smirk in answer.

Tidus will decide that he does not really want to know, after all.


	8. happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rikku infects every single piece of him.  
> He is not sure he's complaining.

Auron had never expected happiness.

Not in his first try, and certainly not in his half-assed second attempt at this thing called life. He had been far more concerned with surviving, on winning and living and protecting - all things he'd failed at, in the end - and he had never really needed to be happy in the first place.

When he meets Rikku, he begins to wonder if he has been limiting his experience.

Rikku's essense is pure happiness - and a little bit of sadness too, because that's how life works, and Rikku is nothing if not vital and  _alive_. He finds life is a pile of bad things and another of good things, and the good things don't always make the bad things better. 

But when Rikku smiles at him - over a mug of chocolate, or by his elbow after he beats Tidus when sparring, or across the fire at night when he's been roped into telling them all a story - he decides that maybe the bad things don't always negate the good things either.

He'd been given ten extra years in Spira, and traveling with Rikku showed him that even a small amount of happiness can make ten years worth a lifetime.


	9. telephone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auron would be afraid of her if he didn't know she was harmless.

He catches her working, once.

She's chewing her lip raw and her hair is falling down in a messy tangle around her face. Her swirled eyes are bouncing back and forth from a small object in her hands and what appears to be a set of blueprints that she's working off.

When he asks her about it later - in a bland sort of voice that he desperately hopes how interested he actually is, and when she smirks at him he's convinced that it probably didn't work like he'd wanted it to - her eyes light up in a way that looks dangerous.

She tells him that she's inventing something that will allow near-instant communication throughout all of Spira, and the hungry gleam in her eyes tells him that when it works - and it  _will_ work, because she doesn't give up on things that lightly - it will work very well.

She natters on for well on an hour about its functions and applicability, and he feels the groan he gives her in answer all the way to his toes.

He is convinced that the invention will be a blessing to those who cannot shut up, and a curse to those who want nothing more than to be left alone.


	10. ears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was never afraid of his strength before he had to worry about scratching her to pieces.

She catches him off guard again, pulling him down to her level and pressing a near-bruising kiss against his lips. He is stronger than her, both bigger and heavier, but he is still helpless to pull away.

She folds herself against him, rubbing her cheek against his scruff as she shifts against him. He is suddenly, and irrationally, afraid that his stubble with scratch her to pieces. She presses a tender kiss against his jawline and he can't remember the last time he'd shaved anyway.

He is frozen - breathless and worried because she is a child and he is far, far too old to be playing this game - and she just keeps getting closer.

She shifts beneath his coat, her fingers roaming wildly, and it is all that he can do to wrap his arms around her and groan out that she needs to stop. That she doesn't know what she's asking him for, and he can't give this to her. 

She doesn't listen; her lips find the space beneath his ear and after a sharp nip to his earlobe, she urges him onward with only a wicked whisper.

Her pleas, at least, do not fall on deaf ears. He resigns himself to never quite being able to say no.


	11. name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auron does not want to think of his name, not when he will be leaving it behind so soon.

She's playing the riddle game again.

The morning had started with an ambush just before dawn, and his day had only gotten worse from there. By the time they'd put up camp, each one of them was bruised and bloody somewhere, and each of them had politely turned Yuna down on her repeated offers to heal them.

She was currently sulking across the fire from him, nursing her own wounds as Lulu sang something too low for his ears to catch.

He watches Rikku slide around the fire until she's seated unusually close, a move that Lulu's sharp eyes do not miss. Before he can say anything, before anyone can, Rikku's got them playing the riddle game.

So when her turn comes around, and she turns those curious eyes on him and asks him what it is that belongs to him that others use more than he ever does - and god, does his chest  _ache_ when she looks at him that way - he only turns back to face the fire.

She waits for a long moment for his answer, before growing impatient and leaving to bother Tidus. 

He does not tell her that he knows the answer, that the answer is his name.

He does not talk about it, does not want to talk about it, because he knows that very, very soon she will have to add his name to the list of those she is already mourning.

And he was never all that fond of his name in the first place.


	12. sensual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifteen year old's do NOT plan seductions, or so he has been told.  
> Auron thinks he's been lied to.

She does not plan her seductions, and that is perhaps the only reason they work so well.

Despite his knowledge of her, despite knowing that she is a self-made thief and liar -  _"But only for a good cause, don't make me sound like a bad person, you big meanie!"_  - and despite knowing absolutely nothing about the mind of teenage girls, he never ever expects her to behave the way she does.

When she leans over him to pick up a piece of leather to tan and nonchalantly brushes her entire front half across his arm, or when she passes him a bowl of soup at dinner and lets her fingers linger just a moment past being polite, and sometimes when she finds herself walking in front of him and swaying her hips just enough to show off the thin strip of skin between her top and her shorts.

She can feel his eyes on her, feel the way he traces the lines of her body with hungry stares that make her feel far more grown up than she actually is.

He tries to tell himself that fifteen year old girls do not plan seductions, and he should not be looking in the first place, and sometimes he believes that. Especially when he wakes up before her and watches her snoring softly into her mass of hair. She'll be curled on her side, her hands softly curled into fists by her face, and her brow furrowed deep as she dreams about something he will never have the courage to ask her about.

He will place a gentle fingertip against the crease in her brow and smile down at her fondly, thinking that she is the most sensual of all when she is not even aware of it.


	13. death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is troubled by her nonchalant acceptance of death.  
> Nevermind the fact that he feels the same.

Auron is no stranger to death.

Everyone in Spira is well-acquainted with it, in point of fact. There is no one alive in Spira who is not aware that death has a standing appointment with all of them. Even little children, who should by all rights be innocent and free from the trappings of adulthood, are aware of death.

Auron has never felt much sympathy for those who died - and he had never considered a change in attitude until meeting Rikku.

It is not that she is so young and full of life and ideals and dreams that he begins to question his views. It is that she faces death with the same nonchalant, resigned humor that he does, aware and apprehensive that the time is coming for them all.

For reasons beyond considering, he finds that it unsettles him how cavalier she is about death.

It is around that time that he remembers that she will not only have to avoid hers, but face his own ending before their journey is done.

He finds that this fact troubles him the most of all.


	14. sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is not gentle, and she did not expect him to be.  
> There is only so much time for such distractions, after all.

She turns sixteen in the Calm Lands.

They throw her a party, courtesy of Rin and his well-placed travel agencies, and Wakka announces that she's finally an adult by the laws of Spira -  _"So why don't you start acting like it, yeah?"_  - and suddenly Auron is done for.

She has been skirting around the issue for weeks, sending him lingering looks that remind him of stolen, inappropriate touches and kisses that taste like chocolate. 

He has done his best to hold out, to remain objective and push her away. All of his complaints have fallen flat in the face of her determination.

When she asks him to take a walk with her later, to explore a cave she's discovered recently - and she only just manages to convince Tidus and Wakka that they most certainly are  _not_ required, she and Auron can handle any fiends they find by themselves, thank you very much - he sighs, resigned, and agrees.

They moment they are out of view, secure and hidden in a shallow cave on the outer curve of the Calm Lands, she is ripping at his coat and his hands are buried in her hair.

It is not neat, and it is not slow. He does not linger like she might have wanted, and she is no less gentle with him. 

In the morning, after they wandered back loose-limbed and suspiciously rumpled, she wakes up smelling like him. Her lips are tender and there are hidden bruises on her hips where he held her just a smidge too tight. There is a barely-concealed bite on his neck, and when she catches his eye - which is not hard to do, because for once, she's awake before everyone else and looks so wonderfully rumpled that it takes everything Auron has in himself to not drag her back to the cave and redo what they'd done the night before - there is a warm, lazy smile that spreads across both of their faces.

Lulu grins to herself and turns on her side to give them the privacy they deserve. There is only so much joy one finds in life, she has learned, and she will not stand in the way of what little Rikku has managed to grab for herself.


	15. touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She will shatter apart at the lightest of touches.  
> She really should have known.

When she boards the airship, even her fingers are numb.

She will stare at the wall for hours before a light touch on her shoulder drags her back to the present.

Lulu smiles at her, and it is so sad and full of grave understanding that it might not really be a smile at all.

Rikku lets her lead her through the airship, she lets her tuck her into a bunk, and she lets her whisper her to sleep.

She dreams of whiskey-brown and the color crimson, and the way her heart  _lurched_ in her chest when he was gone.

She wakes two hours later, shaking and withdrawn, and she is afraid that all it will take is a single word - a touch, really - and she will shatter apart into nothing.

_She does not know how Lulu has survived._

_She wishes that she did not have to find out this way._


	16. weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never said goodbye.  
> She's almost glad.

She stays silent, and he is gone.

He is gone.

He is gone like Home, and like Mother, and like Uncle Braska.

He is gone and he never said goodbye.

_She is almost glad, because she could have never let him go willingly._

He is gone, and yesterday, he kissed her like she was the sun. Like she was the last water in the desert, and he was a man dying of thirst.

He held her so very tight, and told her he would remember. 

She had never pegged him for being sentimental, and she had never imagined that she would have to do this without him.

So she grieves in the only way she knows how - with fake cheery smiles and throwing herself into projects and doing her very, very best to never stop, don't stop moving, don't stop working, don't stop distracting herself from the hole that's eating away at her chest, because if she does she will be absolutely  _ruined_   **-** and when she takes in a very shaky breath, she does not understand why she feels so very, very weak.

_She was never that strong to begin with, but she didn't think she would break so easily._


	17. tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She cannot multi-task her grief.  
> So she doesn't try.

It is two days later before she realizes who else is missing.

She finds Yuna on the deck, her eyes reddened with grief, but clear. They do not speak, and Rikku does not try to ease the silence.

Instead, she takes Yuna's hand and holds it tight. Yuna has lost far more than she has, after all. She lost her mother, and then her father, and then her love - each gone in the blink of an eye.

Rikku still has her father - she watches him barking out orders with a wry grin. And she still has her brother - he's distractedly flying the airship to their new Home, one hand thumbing through a book that looks suspiciously like a language guide.

And she still has Yuna - silent and still, but standing strong. It is as she watches Yuna grieving in poised silence that she finally breaks. Great, giant tears start rolling down her cheek - and she has never been a pretty crier, all red eyes and snotty nose and her hair gets in the way of absolutely everything - and she's got her arms wrapped tight around Yuna.

Yuna, because she has always been a healer, only holds her close.

She does not tell Yuna that she isn't really mourning Tidus - but she does miss him, does want him back fiercely if only to take away the grief that's dimming Yuna's eyes - and Yuna does not ask her any questions. She only holds her while Rikku cries out every tear for the man she loved once and maybe forever.


	18. speed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rikku wonders, if she goes fast enough, can she leave the pain behind.

She doesn't know how she talked them all into this.

She managed to wrangle Shinra in - although she's not sure if he's actually capable of anything or agreed to go along just for the ride - and get Buddy on board without anyone noticing anything. It only takes the three of them to pilot the airship, even if she is not as good as Brother.

So they manage to escape in the airship and take off before Brother and Father realize it. And then they're off, racing out into the open blue sky, because the airship is faster than running.

It is faster than anything else she has ever seen, except maybe the speed with which Auron swings his sword, and when she tells them she wants to go to Guadosalam they only make the course corrections to turn the airship the right way.

The craft speeds along fast enough for her to pretend that she is leaving all of her troubles behind, even as she moves faster and faster toward facing them head on.


	19. wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She tells herself she is hearing things  
> and is terrified that she is not.

She spends an hour outside the entrance, changing her mind and changing it back again.

She knows that Shinra and Buddy are waiting for her, and they will not judge her too harshly if she returns without being able to go inside. They will not look at her as weak. 

She told Tidus once that she liked to keep her memories inside, and that is still as true as it was then, but she just has to  _know_.

So when she finally dares herself to go in, and she stands before the edge for a long moment with her mind carefully blank, she thinks it might have been enough. She went inside, she walked into the Farplane, and no one would ask her about what she saw, so she wouldn't even have to make up a lie. 

But then she messes up, and remembers the way he'd smiled at her the very first time, and then he's  _there._ And he's just the way she remembers him - and of  _course_ he is, because the pyreflies are just showing her what she wants to see, what she remembers like the back of her hand or the way to braid her hair - and he's smirking in that self-satisfied way of his that always made her just a little bit crazy. And she doesn't know when she fell, but she's on her knees and sobbing. She's gasping for air and she can't find any and she can't bare to look at him for even a second longer.

But then she's all cried out, and she raises her head, and he's still there. Waiting for her, like he always was when she fell behind the group. And as she watches him, wishes for him,  _remembers_ him, she swears that he tells her he's sorry.

When she returns to the airship, calm and collected and only just a touch still-unbalanced, she will tell herself that it was only the waterfall, or maybe just the wind.


	20. freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is amazing the way freedom can feel so much like being chained.

It is the first Calm she has ever known that wasn't tainted by fear.

She remembers the first Calm she lived through with vivid clarity. She was only five when Uncle Braska defeated Sin, but she was old enough to understand what it meant when Father told her that he was dead. She was old enough to understand the word  _sacrifice_ and still hadn't mastered tying her shoes.

She remembers growing up afraid - not only for herself - for all the inhabitants of Spira and especially the summoners who were training and fighting and turning themselves into the perfect offerings for ten years of tainted peace. She remembers the fear she'd felt when she learned that Yunie meant to follow her father's footsteps - because he  _was_ a good man, and he  _did_ do something remarkable, but it was Yunie and Yunie couldn't go because she was one of Rikku's precious people.

So she trained and fought and taught herself how to protect the things that matter, and she honed her skills to a fine edge. 

So now, in this Calm without end, she is unbalanced. Yunie has saved them all from the horrible cycle of Sin, and she follows her from thank-you party to thank-you party. She waves and smiles and accepts all the heartfelt thanks that Spira has to offer.

She watches Yunie grow sadder and sadder, and feels her own heart weighed down by what they had to lose - because there is absolutely nothing gained without something first being lost - and she cannot understand why freedom feels so much like being chained.


	21. life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rikku is not a martyr, and does not have time for self-flagellation.  
> But she is lonely.

She comes to grips with the fact that she is alive, and he is not.

Sometimes she dreams about him. 

She finds him by a fire pit, sharpening his sword and laughing at something Tidus said. She sees him cutting through fiend after fiend, his arms strong and his swings sure. She finds him holding out a hand for her, tugging her back into that little cave where they found their one and only moment of peace. She dreams a million little dreams, some of them half-remembered memories and others half-imagined fantasies, and she grows a little more alright with each passing day.

She is not complete by any measure of the word, he left a gnawing ache inside of her without even having the decency to warn her, and she does not know what her future holds without him. But she is not a martyr, and she has learned that she is alive, and he is not.

But she remembers when he almost was, when he touched her with passion and held her with little more than a whiskey-warm gaze. She remembers when he trailed fingers through her hair and gripped her hips just a little too tight - the bruises took two months to fade and the last time she cried for him was when she woke up to find them completely gone, just like the smell of him faded from her hair.

She remembers him, and that might just be enough for her.

And she realizes that she is not alone in her pain and grief, because Yuna is grieving a relationship that was much more substantial and attainable than her own, but she is lonely.

And sometimes, when she feels that it is safe enough to think of him, she wonders if he just might be too.


	22. jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auron knows that a dead man has no call to be jealous of a living one.  
> It doesn't stop him, though.

Auron knows that he is dead.

He has been dead for ten years, and he is no less dead now than he was when he stole moments of warmth with a girl far too young for him.

He died a good death, a warrior's death, and he would not regret a single thing were it not for a skinny blonde Al Bhed teenager who ruined his almost-afterlife by falling in love with him.

But he knows that he is dead, and he knows that she is not. She hovered near the edges for a while, nearly breathless with grief, but she's growing and a little older now, and she is learning that your heart does not stop beating when it breaks.

So he knows that he is dead, and is quite alright with that fact, but he cannot hide the ugly feeling that grows in his stomach every time he thinks of someone else touching what is  _his_. Even though he has no rights to claim her, even though he could not begin to substantiate such a claim.

He knows the shape of her mouth in passion and the way the skin of her hips feels against his palms. He knows the smell of the base of her neck beneath the heavy weight of her hair, and he has memorized the curve of every single smile she ever had to give him. It's why he was so weak in the first place.

He was dead and she was alive, and she was more life than he had ever known before, even when he was still breathing.

So when his time came, and he finally passed on to the other side, he was amazed to find out just how jealous a dead man could be.


	23. hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gippal is not Auron, and never pretended to be.  
> Rikku always knew that.

She knew from the start it would be different.

Gippal is not Auron.

He is flashy and loud, all crooked grins and cheesy pick up lines that absolutely do not work on her. He has also known her since she was awkward and gangly.

She is less awkward and gangly, although still a little bowed by grief, and he does not ask her questions she cannot answer. He does not ask her why she shows up at his door in the middle of the night. He does not question her need when she yanks him in for a deep kiss that steals his breath. He does not judge her when she can't look at him the next morning.

She knew when she walked into his house that Gippal was not Auron, and she does not pretend he is.

He runs a heavy hand down her back in a way that makes her shiver, and she thinks about the way his hands are rough from work and scarred from fighting. It is enough for her, for now, and so she rolls into him and lets him kiss her into forgetfulness and bliss.

Gippal is not Auron, he never was, but his hands are almost the same and it is enough for her, and that is why when he asks her to, she stays.


	24. taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grief ruins the flavor of everything.

It is winter and there are food and drink sellers in the market square in Luca. She is meandering through them at an easy pace when a familiar smell catches her attention.

She finds herself wandering closer, drawn in by nostalgia.

It's only as she's paying for it that she realizes she's bought a cup of chocolate.

She thanks the seller and shakily wanders off, her eyes glued to the steaming cup in her hand. 

She finds herself sitting on a dock outside the stadium, watching the tide come in and determinedly thinking about nothing. After a few long minutes, she sets the still-full cup on the dock beside her. She stands without looking at it, and walks away without a second glance.

She cannot drink chocolate anymore, because all she tastes is Auron.

She will never be quite healed enough for that.


	25. devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She learns to swing a sword and hopes that is enough.

When she asks her why she does it, Yuna tells her that she whistles everywhere she goes because if Tidus hears it, he will come for her. Rikku thinks that speaks a lot about their relationship, even if she doesn't know exactly what it says. She watches Yuna whistle her way around Spira and wonders what she could possibly do for Auron.

They did not really have a relationship in the first place, he was too tired and she was too young, and it certainly wouldn't pass up to snuff with whatever Yuna and Tidus had. Rikku learned to love him the most once he was gone and out of her reach forever, and she thinks that that also says something about her own relationships.

So she watches and Yuna whistles, and then she wonders.

She cannot whistle, and when she is honest with herself she does not think he would return for one if she could, anyway. So she begins to despair - because how does a 17 year old girl woo a man his age in the first place, much less call a man with his history back from the dead? - and then inspiration comes in the form of Paine.

The red-eyed warrior is terse and cynical in a way that makes Rikku feel like coming home to a house where everything's been moved to the opposite side of the room from where it used to be; it's still home, and you're still glad to be there, but there's just an unsettling feeling that things aren't quite right.

So Yuna whistles, and Paine observes dryly, and Rikku shores up her courage and learns to swing a sword like him and hopes that it is enough.


	26. forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time moves slowly when that's all you have.

Auron knows that he will not age in the Farplane. If anything, he feels younger than he did when his body was still young and whole.

He watches Rikku fight her way through Spira again, searching for spheres and clues. He watches her swing a sword as easily as he did. He watches her share timid kisses and fall in almost-love with a silver-haired, red-eyed warrior, and he does not even try to hide his relief when they manage to bring Tidus back.

He watches her grow and advance and achieve things he'd never wasted time on before, and he aches - but only just a little - when he thinks of the way she gives her smiles freely to everyone.

He knows that he will not age in the Farplane, and he knows that one day, the two of them will be reunited - because Braska told him so many stories of the Farplane and what happens  _after_ for a love that is like lightening in your veins.

So he waits, and he doesn't age while she continues to, and he cannot help thinking that Rikku is simply taking  _forever._


	27. blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rikku is twenty-three and dying.  
> Clearly, she was in over her head.

Rikku is twenty-three and she might be dying.

Sin is gone, but the fiends remain, and she wasn't exactly listening when Wakka told her not to go exploring by herself because they'd spotted some dangerous fiends in the area.

She was strong and capable and couldn't resist tracking down a rare bit of machina she'd heard a rumor about, and really, it was only a matter of time before her curiosity got her into more trouble than she could handle.

So she wasn't paying much attention, and that's how she completely missed the Queen Coeurl that had been peacefully snoozing in a corner of the cave she found her treasure in. One moment she was dancing around, happy about a bit of rare machina to tinker with, and the next she was flat on her back and nose to nose with a very unhappy feline.

With some luck, and an admittedly handy grenade she'd found stashed in her pouch, she managed to escape. It was only once she was out of the cave, back to safety and friendly faces, that she realizes the dampness she was feeling on her legs wasn't cave water after all.

She watches for a long moment as she bleeds from three deep gashes across her lower abdomen, strangely detached, before she collapses on the ground outside the cave.

When she surfaces back to the waking world, and she's not sure how long that takes because blood loss does funny things to one's memory, a very pale looking Yuna is frowning over her.

She forces a smile and waves a weak hand, apologizing for getting blood on Yuna's new skirt and ignoring the way Wakka glares like an overly-protective father. It's funny the way things turn out in the end, she thinks, because there was a time when Wakka would have wished messy deaths on her and everyone like her.

When she drifts back into dreaming - because Yuna is insistent that she rest, and if Rikku wasn't grateful for her cousin before she most certainly is now - she is surprised to hear a warm chuckle in the back of her head, like a memory long forgotten, and she falls asleep thinking about the smell of his coat.


	28. sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's like a new disease,  
> she's still too young to treat.

Yuna is a miracle worker at healing, but Rikku has always taken pride in being something of an exception to rules.

The wound grew infected before Yuna could get her hands on it, and Rikku is insistent that Yuna worry about the villagers instead. After fighting with her for what felt like hours - but was really only fifteen minutes of heavy sighs and stern glances - Yuna relents after forcibly scrubbing Rikku's wounds and binding them with clean bandages. If she cleaned them with a little more force than necessary, Rikku is wise enough not to complain.

So she drifts in and out of awareness, sipping bowls of broth when someone forces her to, and she dreams. She dreams of a future she could have. She dreams of a present that, while not altogether unpleasant, was most certainly not in her plans. She dreams of a past and stolen moments; around a fire, behind a temple, in the cover of a shallow cave. She dreams of whiskey-warm eyes - two of them, because in the Farplane he is restored to how he  _should_ have been for her - and strong, tanned arms, and his laugh when she shows off her sword skills. She dreams of slow, easy kisses and the bruises he left on her hips.

And then one night, after lingering in bed for nearly two weeks under Wakka's stern glare, Yuna's gentle admonishments, Lulu's understanding gazes, and even Paine's silent, occasional compnay, she dreams of something new.

He waits before her, poised and much too handsome, and she is content to watch him breathing. He waits until she is comfortable and then tells her that she has to fight. That she must go back and live, for the both of them. That her life would be proof positive that his sacrifice was worth something. He does not let her speak, and he leaves her once he is done, and when she wakes in the morning her stomach is healed and her limbs feel weak in a way that has nothing to do with her sickness.

So she rises from bed, makes everyone breakfast, and decides that if she can do nothing else, she will live.


	29. melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about it is, she hated that song to begin with.

She goes with them, when they wander.

Tidus had never had the chance to explore Spira as a tourist, and there were many places that weren't exactly friendly to the Al Bhed before. She follows along behind Yuna and Tidus, taking in everything she can see.

Sometimes she sees the way Tidus watches Yuna, with a sort of self-satisfied grin that makes her remember hard hands and stolen kisses. She has gotten better at reading the situation and knows when to make herself scarce.

It is after she sees one of these looks when they are in Djose that she makes a mistake.

She'd been looking for Gippal - the blond bastard had been avoiding her for months, and she had a sneaking suspicion fueled on by Paine that the rumors circling Bevelle about him and the young silver-haired Praetor weren't entirely baseless - and somehow she wound up in the temple. She'd been following the crowds, meandering along, and then she was standing before the steps that lead up into the Cloister of Trials.

She doesn't know what provoked her, what made her climb the steps and enter the cloister, but she slips in unnoticed by any of the priests. She wanders through blindly, half-distracted, and then suddenly, she's before the Chamber of the Fayth. They aren't there anymore, they haven't been for a long time, but there's something of the hymn remaining. A whisper in the back of her mind, like a childhood melody she's only just remembering.

She stares for a long moment before she is suddenly sick with grief and screaming.

He was  _hers,_ she fought for him and paid for him with blood and tears and she  _wanted_ him more than anything she had ever wanted before - and that was saying a lot, because Rikku has known what it is to want something with your entire being before - and they took him away. He was hers and she needs him more than she's needed anything else before.

Tidus finds her two hours later curled into a ball by the hole left by the Fayth, humming the hymn like the most broken of prayers. When he carries her out - and no, she  _doesn't_ care what anyone else has to say about it and yes, Yuna, she'll be  _fine_ , she promises - she wonders what Auron would think and if she will ever finally be alright.


	30. star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's funny the stories we keep with us.  
> Rikku doesn't really think so.

She remembers her mother's voice the most of everything.

Rikku inherited her hair and her eyes from her, she sees her mother looking back at her each time she looks in the mirror, but it is her mother's voice that she knows the clearest.

She was never a gentle child, all knobbly knees and sharp elbows and completely covered in grease because she wanted to be just like Brother and Father, and sometimes she wonders if her mother ever wished she was different. 

She remembers her mother untangling her mass of blonde hair, clicking her tongue as she brushed out tangles and leaves and little clumps of dirt. But she also remembers her stories. 

She remembers her mother telling her that every time a star shot across the sky, leaving behind an arc of light in its wake, it meant that someone had reached the Farplane. For a long time, Rikku had believed that to be true.

When her mother died, she'd searched the skies every night for a sign that her mother had made it to the Farplane, and she had never seen a single shooting star.

So when she walks down the beach that night, two months after her injury and a few short weeks after the temple incident, she finds herself searching the sky again. Her heart jumps to her throat when she sees them, a brilliant shower of stars, lighting up the entire night sky as they moved from one horizon to the other.

Rikku takes a seat and watches it, and even though it only lasts around four minutes, something in her eases at the sight.

She begins to think that perhaps, maybe, her mother was right until there, after the sky calms - walking up from the water like it's the most natural thing in the world and she should  _not_ be surprised - is Auron.


	31. home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes one mile is harder to walk than thirty.  
> Lucky for them that he took the fast train home.

She stares for a long moment.

The night is calm and cool, not unlike most nights on Besaid. The waves are gentle and consistent, lapping against the shore like the heartbeat of the planet. Only his sloshing footsteps are out of place.

When he reaches the shore, and all that remains between them is a gulf of two feet that somehow seems  _entirely_ too far, she finds herself on her feet.

She is not fifteen anymore - she is eight years past the crush that changed her entire life - and he is not the same person she fell in love with. She can see it in the way he carries himself; his shoulders are squared and proud, not bowed by the weight of the burden he carried for them all. Both of his eyes are clear and warm, and a genuine smile adds a warmth to his face that she had only seen once or twice. They watch each other for a long, tense moment, and Rikku feels every muscle in her body coiled as tight as a spring. He inhales to speak - and what he was going to say she will never, ever know - and she launches herself at him.

It takes her the measure of two heartbeats - and isn't it funny that everything started with two simple heartbeats - to run across the space between them and throw herself at him with arms wide open. His laughter is bright and warm as he catches her easily.

They do not speak, because she wouldn't know where to start, and when he captures her lips in a kiss that is gentle and full of promise, she sighs with a relief that is palpable. He is so very real and warm under her fingertips, and she is now the perfect height for him to tuck under his chin, and finally, finally, finally, he is home.


	32. confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She couldn't have told them if they'd asked.  
> So they didn't.

She does not ask him.

It isn't that she doesn't want to know, because she's never wanted to know anything so much as she wants to know this. To know the hows and most especially the whys and if this means that she might be able to bring anyone else back.

He does not tell her.

He couldn't begin to explain it if he tried, and he's not really sure he knows the answer in the first place. He does not know any hows, and his why is the same reason she wanted him back so badly.

They do not try to explain to the others - Tidus is the only one who does not need any explanation and he asks not a single question, because he  _understands,_ and really, that says more about the young man than Jecht had ever anticipated - and they do not try to be discreet anymore.

When Wakka proposes a family meal to celebrate, Auron shows his agreement by hauling Rikku back to him and kissing the daylights out of her. Rikku politely requests that they postpone dinner until a later day, and all of them laugh when she drags him off to her own hut.

They are confused, but they are together, and after a lifetime or two of sorrow and woe and sacrifice, it is enough.


	33. fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rikku thinks that our fears say more about us than we ever will.  
> She's not exactly wrong.

Rikku has known fear before.

She experienced the entire spectrum in her life, short as it has been. She has felt the kind of fear that leaves you weak in the knees. She has felt the kind of fear that makes you cry. She has felt the kind of fear that makes the tips of your fingers tingle with anticipation. She has even lived through the kind of fear that makes you strong.

It is three weeks after his return, the first time she wakes up alone. It doesn't register to her at first - she has always risen from sleeping slowly, unlike others who can open their eyes and be completely awake - until she turns over in their shared bed and finds nothing but cold sheets.

At first, this seems normal. He was gone for eight years, and even the brief time that she had him she had never once woken up by his side. Her romps with Gippal had never lasted until the morning and he'd snored horrendously as a child, so as an adult she hadn't chanced it. Paine had lingered, her touches soft despite her abrupt manner, but they'd never shared a bunk to avoid starting rumors and their affair had only lasted a few weeks in the first place. So it didn't feel entirely out of place until her eyes came into focus and she realized that she was alone.

A fear like fire lit up her bones, and instantly she was throwing on clothing. She managed to make it out of the hut - half-dressed and breathing so hard she could feel her heartbeat in her ears - before she ran into something warm and solid that knocked her flat on her butt. She met his eyes with a groan before a wave of relief washed through her, dousing the fire fear had left in her gut.

He did not say anything about it, he picked her up off the ground and took her back inside until her fingers were tingling for an entirely different reason, and even though she never had to ask him, she never wakes up alone again.


	34. thunder & lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auron always wondered why she was afraid of the storm,  
> when she was the storm beneath skin.

Yuna mentions it offhand to Tidus one night at their regular family dinner. Auron stores the fact away, and asks her about it that night in their hut.

At first, she hides her face against his chest, and it takes about twenty minutes of gentle kisses and soft words to woo the story out of her.

She tells him about her grief, about the way she handled and mishandled everything to do with healing. She tells him about stealing the airship. She tells him about running away. She tells him about Gippal, and then Paine - and she does not comment on the way his hands clench into fists against her skin and his eyes grow hot with jealousy - and she even tells him about her tears in the Djose temple. 

It is when she gets to her story about the Thunder Plains, how she managed to camp there for a week all by her lonesome, that she feels laughter shaking his chest. She's not halfway through the story of her bravery - because it was really scary and she  _did_ do it, all by herself, without anyone there to help her, and yeah okay, maybe she left a few hours earlier than she should have because thunder is scary and lightning is scarier, but it's okay to be scared when you know why you're scared - and Auron is rolling with laughter. _  
_

It's loud and warm and makes her feel like home.

So she lets him laugh, even laughs with him, despite the fact that it feels just the tiniest bit like he's laughing  _at_ her instead of  _with_ her.

She is still proud of herself for facing her fear and surviving.


	35. bonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are families and then there are families of choice.  
> We choose who we belong to, and no one knows this better than they do.

No one ever questions it.

She's been his from the moment he told her she was enough, outside the Farplane in Guadosalam so many years ago. He has had her name written on his soul since the day he watched her dancing in the rain, all long limbs and heavy hair and laughing green eyes.

No one ever asks, and they do not make it a point to tell.

She knows that he likes his coffee bitter, and loves when she takes her hair down and lets him run his fingers through it. He knows that she purrs like a cat when he scratches in  _just_ the right spot in the middle of her back, and that she prefers her fish salted.

She could never read him before, she was just so  _young_ , and he would never have considered her even a remote possibility.

So they do not label it, this thing that they share made up of lazy kisses at sunrise and spontaneous treasure hunts, and he loves her even when he finds pieces of hides stuffed into his pockets after a fiend fight.

She is Auron's, and he is Rikku's, and that is all that anyone needs to know.

Especially them.


	36. market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She may have liked his jealousy, but she was most certainly not his property.

She's followed Yuna and Tidus again, off to Luca for the blitzball tournament, but this time she isn't alone.

Auron follows her as she wanders through the merchants in the market square, exclaiming with glee when she finds something particularly interesting. He watches her walk - it's just as seductive as it was years ago when she was only fifteen and far too young to be aware - with great appreciation, his mind wandering even as he surreptitiously checks for a place to duck into with her and steal a few kisses.

He's about to step forward and direct her to find one, and even if they can't he remembers the back stairs that lead to the top of the stadium and he's more than prepared to recreate that moment with Rikku, when a young man is suddenly in his way.

Rikku's talking his ear off about machina and something she calls a Garment Grid and the young man is wide-eyed with awe and standing just a little too close to Rikku for Auron's liking. The young man moves further into Rikku's personal space and just as she's about to reprimand him herself, he's gone.

She flounders for a few moments - because instant teleportation still isn't a thing in Spira yet, but she and Shinra are working really hard on it - and she suddenly sees him pinned to the wall by a very large sword she knows all too well.

She ambles over, all smiles, to catch the tail end of Auron informing him in his gravel-rough voice that Rikku is most certainly off the market. Suitably impressed and thoroughly scared off, the young man leaves with a rushed apology. Male pride assuaged, Auron turns back to find Rikku standing behind him with a deceptively sweet smile on her face.

She steps closer and tells him, in no uncertain terms, that while she appreciates his candor and is flattered that she means so much to him, that she didn't need a hero when she was fifteen and he does not own her. She is not an item to be bought or sold or stolen. There is a gleam in her green eyes that tells him any further attempts to defend his  _territory_ \- and really, does he honestly think she's going to leave him now, after all they've shared, for some fresh-faced teen in Luca? - could end with serious damage to his person. He only nods and agrees, because he is smart enough to know when he has been beaten and he has seen her fight before.

It doesn't stop her from grinning the entire way home, though.


	37. technology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is awed by her tribute and scandalized by the amount of skin she always seems to be showing.

The first time he sees the Garment Grid in action, they are fighting a particularly nasty fiend in the Macalania Woods. A flash of light to his left draws his attention and he's momentarily distracted by the sight of it.

Suddenly, and far too quickly for him to analyze it at that moment, Rikku is garbed in tight leather and swinging a sword that looks suspiciously similar to his own. The sight of her attacking the fiend head on, and wielding that sword with such dexterity that he feels absurdly and unaccountably proud, startles him back into action. Later, when they're laying out their bedrolls and making light conversation, he asks about it.

She shyly tells him about the odd piece of technology, about their quest for the spheres, and asking Paine to teach her how to wield a sword. He doesn't ask her why she wanted to know so badly, doesn't have to with the way her cheeks heat up pink and she watches him from the corner of her eye, but he does ask for her to show him the rest of them. She hesitates, nervous and momentarily shy, and finally gives in to his request. She switches through each dress sphere, blushing prettily when his gaze lingers, before ending her show and tell with the outfit he'd seen her fight in before.

She balances the sword casually over her shoulder, like he does, and meets his gaze fully despite the pink still on her cheeks. He drinks in the image of her and all her long limbs wrapped up in tight leather, and somehow the outfit is far more scandalous than her little skirt and bikini combo that she normally traipses around in. 

He has to clear his throat - that got suspiciously drier the longer she talked and explained each wardrobe choice - to tell her how much he appreciates her tribute. The grin she gives him in answer warms him down to his core.


	38. gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her life is her gift to him.  
> He wants to return the favor.

He is not one to be particularly sentimental, even now in his surprising third chance at a life.

Rikku leaves him trinkets she finds in the fiends, reinforces his armor with hides that have been tanned and stretched, and spars with him when he's particularly bored. She fixes his favorite food without him having to ask, and laughs when he tries to act like he isn't pleased. She never goes out of her way to be sweet to him, and that makes her efforts all the sweeter in the end.

So he hunts and searches and tears through fiends to find something that might be particularly wonderful to her - and it's troubling him how easily she can give of herself without asking for a single thing back from him. He finds it hiding in the corner of a merchant's booth, partially obscured by some flimsy scarves and unrepentantly ugly hats.

It's a simple token, really - just a leather thong braided around some pretty green beads that remind him of her swirling eyes, a feather in the most attractive shade of orange he's ever seen, and a shell hollowed out by time and faintly opalescent - and he leaves it out for her to find when she wakes up in the morning.

It isn't anything flashy or spectacular, or even particularly sentimental, but he cannot deny how flattered he is when he sees it added the very next day to her intricate braids for all of Spira to see.


	39. smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time and time again, Rikku proves that it is enough.

He is still older than her, by an entire lifetime almost, despite how his body appears. He was given the gift of youth upon his second return to life, but the memories are all still there, waiting in the back of his head to take him down at any moment.

He still gets lost in thoughts of Jecht, and Braska. Every now and then he feels a sharp twinge in his shoulder than reminds him of days and days of overuse. And sometimes, when the sky lights up that peculiar ocher color right before it rains, he gets trapped in memories of flames, and warfare, and all of the lies he bled for when serving under Yevon's misguided guidance.

Rikku knows that he is still haunted, knows that he is still carrying the invisible scars of a life he lived long before he knew her. She knows that he gets restless, watches the way his fingers sometimes twitch toward the sword he uses less and less every day. She knows that his dreams sometimes take abrupt turns for the horrifying, she feels him grow tense and stiff beside her with fear or regret or maybe something that is a mix of both.

So when he wakes up from his nightmares, from memories of his friends and family and loved ones dying for a fight that they never, ever imagined an  _end_ to, she does not say a single word.

She does not ask him if he is alright - because he is  _not_ okay, but he is  _okay_ , and Rikku has lost enough and loved enough to know the difference - and she does not try to make him forget.

She only smiles at him in the darkness, eyes clear of judgement or pity. She smiles at him, and he measures his breathing, and it is enough.


	40. innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had never imagined that that kind of purity could still exist.  
> They are always proving him wrong.

They are not there when Yuna goes into labor. They are wandering around the Calm Lands - revisiting a certain cave for old times' sake - and return a day after the birth is over.

Wakka greets them at the village entrance, a wide smile on his face and a struggling child tucked under each arm - he and Lulu ended up with three children total, despite her vehement protests against ever bearing him more than one child, and the eldest is as taken with blitzball as his father ever was. All it takes is one look at that smug grin to send Rikku racing through the village. Auron follows at a steady pace, relieving Wakka of one of his struggling toddlers and slinging her over his own shoulder. The child cackles with glee and Auron doesn't even try to hide the smile that crosses his face.

He makes his way into the hut and is greeted by Tidus smiling wider than Auron had previously thought was physically possible. Auron gives the young man a tight hug and offers up his congratulations, and then his heart stutters a little and stops.

Rikku is cooing over the small bundle in her arms while Yuna watches fondly, if more than a little exhausted. The only thing Auron can see of the baby is a tuft of golden-brown hair, and it's easy enough for him to imagine that it's Rikku's child. He heaves in a great breath, remembering to breathe when he feels his chest aching, and Tidus is at his side asking him to be the godfather. He agrees, only a little numb, and his eyes never leave Rikku.

Children are the only innocent thing left in Spira, and the new generation will never have to fear Sin. They will grow up untainted, learning the stories without ever having to live them.

It is then when Auron begins to think more directly about where is future is going, and how he is ever going to manage to convince Rikku they need a child. Judging from the sweet smile on her face, he doesn't imagine it will be all that difficult, in the end.


	41. completion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's never been so happy to complete a task.

He asks her on a Thursday.

They are naked and spread haphazardly across the bed, one of Rikku's legs dangling off the side while she hums somewhat distractedly. He doesn't preface it with a speech, and he doesn't make her any flowery promises. Just asks her, in no uncertain terms, if she'll marry him.

The grin on her face is all  _cat that got the canary_ , but he doesn't mind that so much when she nods and kisses his shoulder. A weight he hadn't known he'd been carrying suddenly feels gone, like he's stronger than he ever had been before.

He gives her the ring a week later, without fuss or ceremony, and it's really only a plain silver band with their names etched in it - because he is not really a fancy gemstone kind of man, and frankly, neither is she. Still, when she smiles at him after slipping it on her finger, and then demanding that his look exactly the same, he takes an easy breath.

He feels like of all the tasks he'd ever been assigned, in any of his chances at life, this was the first one he'd ever completed with such a perfect finish. He doesn't even mind when she forces him to show it off later that night at dinner.


	42. clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She points out that he can cloud-watch from anywhere with clouds.  
> He neglects to comment.

At first, he is against travelling to speak to her father. Not out of some ill will toward the man, but he has been told that he does not own Rikku, that she is her own woman, and that this fact applies to anyone else who might think they have a claim on her.

He does not see a point to ask her father for permission, when the only permission he needed was given while they both lay naked in their bed. Rikku is not impressed. She spends a week whining, and another week complaining, and finally threatens him with absolute bodily harm if he refuses to go with her to Djose. He shares a glance with Tidus, then with Wakka, and heaves a deep sigh that is more an acquiescence than an agreement.

He follows her to Djose, where her father and the rest of the Al Bhed have set up their new Home, and spends the majority of the trip finding shapes in the clouds. He is amused to learn later that her father did the same thing on his journey to ask for the hand of Rikku's mother.

Auron thinks they'll get along just fine.


	43. sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is little left beyond ruins and sky.  
> She is alright, nonetheless.

Rikku asks him, in a voice that is terribly small, if he will go to Bikanel with her. He doesn't argue or ask why - because he knows that she would want to honor the memory of her lost Home and her lost friends and most especially, her lost mother - and agrees.

The four of them end up going - Cid, Brother, himself and Rikku - and for reasons beyond his own comprehending, his throat grows very tight. Rikku lays out some flowers and a few pretty stones she'd collected, a childish offering from an adult who will never let go of being a child.  _And he would never, ever change that about her, not for all the things in the world._ She says a few words in Al Bhed that he politely tries not to understand, and he gracefully ignores the way Cid and Brother's eyes grow very damp.

It costs him very little to try and take her grief away, and she has owned more grief than he would have ever wished for her, and so he tries in the only way he knows how. He takes her hand in his and gives her the silence she needs.

There is little more than sand and rubble and sky where their Home stood. The sight of it is harder to bare than Rikku had imagined, the wound of loss still fresh even despite the years since. He does not say anything the entire time they are there, but Auron's hand is big and warm enough to make her feel okay.

Despite his initial dislike of him, her father's grin is wide when they leave, and Rikku feels like she might just fly away with hope.

 


	44. heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd been to Heaven once.  
> He didn't like it.

The Farplane had never felt very much like heaven to him, or what he'd thought heaven should feel like at the least. It was beautiful in the way that a statue is, and just as cold and unfeeling. He imagined there must have been more to the Farplane than he ever saw, because he did come back after all, but he isn't all so interested in that.

Rikku is sprawled beneath him, and it never fails to delight him that the blush that colors her cheeks so prettily continues all the way down her naked chest. Her hair is a tangled mess beneath her head, and her breath comes in little more than soft moans and choked gasps. There is a light sheen of sweat making her skin glisten in the dim light of the hut, and all of his senses are wrapped up in the way she keeps moaning out his name.

Rikku is aching beneath him, squirming and searching for purchase with sweat-slicked hands. Auron is doing  _that_ thing with his tongue, and her breath is somehow getting all tangled up in her throat. She encourages him onward with choked out whispers and fingers in his hair.

He chuckles against her heated skin - and the sound goes right through her in the most  _delicious_ way - and when he follows through with her requests, because they weren't really requests and her husband is a very smart man, she is absolutely convinced that heaven will never be as good as this.


	45. hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War might be hell,  
> but he'd lived through a war.

Wakka finds him on the docks skipping rocks out into the water.

Auron eyes him out of the corner of one blood-shot eye, and Wakka laughs loudly and entirely unsympathetic.

Rikku is four months pregnant and a walking, sometimes talking, sometimes crying emotional time-bomb. Auron was debating the merits of carrying his sword again for his own personal protection, when the threats of castration began making their way into her usual grumblings, and it was then that Auron decided his wife needed some time to herself.

He'd been hiding at the docks for well on two hours before Wakka found him.

Wakka claps a hand on his shoulder, all smiles, and makes an obscure joke about war being hell before leaving him with his thoughts. If he didn't like the man so much, he'd have damaged him. Auron thinks about his parting comment for a minute, before dismissing it entirely.

He is quite certain that pregnant women are hell, because he had lived through a war.


	46. sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She'd never hated the rain so much.

Rikku loves only one thing as much as she loves Auron - always excluding other family members and friends.

She is trapped in the hut, six months pregnant and uncharacteristically moody. Auron has disappeared somewhere with Tidus and Wakka, and she's spitefully glad that he's gone, even if she does regret thinking it later.

All she'd wanted when she woke that morning was to wobble out to the beach and let the sun warm her skin. The baby inside her moved, she guessed in agreement, and she turned to glare balefully out the window.

Heavy, heavy sheets of rain were falling outside. Thunder boomed in the heavens and the occasional shock of lightning streaked across the sky. Rikku glared for a moment longer before deciding, rather uncharitably, that her wayward husband was also to blame for the weather.

It is this line of thinking that leads to him coming home to find all his clothing outside the hut, completely drenched. Wakka and Tidus do not give him the sympathy of laughing out of earshot, but they do agree to help him drag it all back inside where Rikku is, thankfully, sleeping.

He brushes the hair from her face and presses a soft kiss to her forehead, enjoying the way she sighs his name as she shifts in sleep. He rekindles the fire with a fond sigh and hopes the sun comes back out soon.


	47. moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It brings out the worst in him.  
> She is not afraid.

He has not had a nightmare in months when he wakes up to the worst one yet. The moon is full and heavy in the sky outside, but he cannot see it. Rikku is nowhere to be found, and he's glad for it, because he cannot tell where the dream world ends and the real world begins.

There is yelling all around him, frantic and desperate. He can still see Braska and Jecht falling before him, their blood spilling out on the ground beneath them. He can still feel himself dying - not only once, but twice, and each time hurt more than he had ever imagined that anything could - and there is still so much blood on his hands that he'll never manage to wash off.

He sees Sin and fights and friends he will never speak to again, and he cannot shake himself to full waking.

Rikku watches him from the corner of the hut, obscured by the shadows - she is not afraid of him, because even half-mad he wouldn't hurt her, but as she watches the light in his eyes grow further and further away, and listens to his cries for help, she is afraid  _for_ him - and prays to whoever is still listening that her husband will still be her husband in the morning.

When he finally crawls back into bed and stills, she sings the hymn to soothe him back to sleep. She still hates the hymn, hates what Yevon did to Spira and the people who died for it over and over and over again, and she will never stop hating them because they nearly ruined Auron before she had ever had a chance with him, but his face eases by degrees the longer that she sings.

So she sings, and she aches for him, and when the sun rises in the morning, she knows that they will be okay.


	48. waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the road you take home is longer than the road you left on.  
> Tidus thinks they'll be fine.

Auron finds him at the beach.

Rikku is an angry pregnant woman and Yuna loves her husband, so she shooed him out of his house to go and find her own missing spouse. Tidus is sprawled across the sand, his head pillowed on his arms as he watches the sky. Auron takes a seat beside him without a word, ignoring the knowing smile Tidus sends his way.

They sit there in comfortable silence for a long time, and Auron watches the waves. The longer they sit there, the more morose his thoughts turn.

He thinks about the path he set out on in the first place. Thinks about Jecht and his irreverent, unapologetic attitude. He thinks about Braska, and the strong will he passed on to his daughter. He thinks about dying, then living, then dying, then living again. But most of all, as he watches the waves, he wonders what Tidus sees when he looks at them.

He wonders if Tidus looks at the waves the same way he looks at his sword sometimes. Both of them were taken far beyond their original paths, down old rickety roads and broken pathways that they would never have walked before, but he thinks that they are finally where they belong after all the trouble.

He doesn't bother to ask Tidus if he's right; the young man's smile tells him everything he needs to know.


	49. hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn't imagine one person could have so much hair.  
> Rikku likes shaking his world up.

He has always been drawn to her hair.

At first it was disbelief. He couldn't imagine how one person could have so much of it all by themselves. And then it was the sheer effort she put into maintaining it. She made it look so easy, of course, but all things come easily enough with practice.

The countless braids and twists and little beads tucked here and there all seemed like more effort than he would have ever tried to put into it. So naturally, her hair is the first thing he notices upon entering the hut.

He had been kicked out nearly ten hours prior - apparently he was not  _wanted_ during the labor, and that may have had something to do with the fact that he'd absolutely, 100% gone full on weak-in-the-knees wobbly the moment her contractions had started - and was finally being let in by a weary Lulu. He was lead to the bedside with little fuss, and all he could see was Rikku's mass of blonde hair.

It was messier than he'd ever seen it before, loose and tangled with her sweat, and something about it sent him near to wobbly-knee territory again. Then she smiled up at him while holding a tiny bundle close to her chest. She motioned him closer, offering him the little one, and told him she wanted to name their son Braska.

He can't breathe initially as he takes the child from her arms - because what if he doesn't hold it right and where are you supposed to put your hands and this was a whole hell of a lot easier when he was just manhandling one of Wakka's brats that are already sort of bounce proof - and then he can't breathe for an entirely different reason.

She has to repeat herself when he looks at her with those glassy eyes that yes, their child is a son and she wants to name him after her uncle. He only just stops himself from tearing up with everyone else in the room, and holds the baby close to his heart.

His son is a sweet, squishy mix of the both of them, right down to that tuft of golden-brown hair, and all he can do is nod. Then he's holding the both of them, one hand in her hair while his eyes stay locked on his little sleeping bundle. The look on his face is enough to make all the pain worth it for Rikku.

Somehow she thinks he feels the same.


	50. supernova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tidus speaks of science.  
> Auron would just like some silence.

Tidus tells him the following week about something called a supernova.

The initial newness of being a father still hasn't quite worn off, but after a week of catching short naps between diapers and feeding and more diapers has started to make Auron look his age again. He catches his friends' gaze with bleary eyes.

Tidus repeats himself, going on to talk about how it's this really bright light and it takes up a lot of energy and that's probably how Spira was created in the first place. Auron doesn't track a single word of the conversation, but he nods anyway, letting Tidus ramble on about space and what could be out there and asking him if he'd ever thought about exploring further.

Auron doesn't have the energy to answer, but if he did, he would tell him no, that he wasn't concerned. He doesn't know what to make of supernovas or space or anything else that Tidus is talking about, but he does know that Rikku and Braska are his sun and moon, and as far as he's concerned that is all a man ever needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading!  
> I hope you enjoyed it!  
> Queenie~


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